Arkansas schools are continuing this year with the implementation of the Common Core State Standards initiative — a set of standards instructors are required to teach their students after Arkansas adopted the initiative two years ago.

Of the initiative, adopting states were given the option to choose between two guidelines -- Smarter balance and the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC), the latter of which Arkansas now follows.

The Russellville School District began implementing the new standards in 2011 in kindergarten through second grades. It continues its adaptation to the new standards this year through the implementation through eighth grade.

Grades 9-12 are expected to begin the implementation process in the 2013-14 academic year.

The standards, according to Russellville Director of Secondary Instruction Sheila Jacobs, focus more heavily on critical thinking and writing skills, while steering away from the traditional textbook-based lessons. Not only will the new standards align Arkansas students with those from other states, offering similar curriculum to ease state-to-state transfer, but Jacobs said once the standards are implemented among all grade levels, students will begin to see new curriculum implemented, such as writing skills becoming a more dominant part of each subject, and they will be taught better to interpret lessons rather than simply remember them for an exam.

“Literacy itself is a skill, it’s not a class,” Jacobs said. “We’re trying to have a mindset that really everybody is a literacy teacher, regardless of what they teach. That doesn’t mean they don’t teach the content of science, or physics or calculus — you have the content that you teach. But also in teaching that content you teach the student literacy skills.”

Jacobs said the Common Core assessments will replace assessments such as the Benchmark exam — a bi-annual exam previously given to students to assess skills learned throughout the school year, putting a heavier focus on teachers to teach by-the-book rather than branch out in their lessons.

The Common Core assessments will have taken place of the other exams by 2014, Jacobs said.

“You have to have assessments that show students are meeting these standards,” she said.

Another change students will see in upper grades is that between 60-70 percent of their reading will be informational.

“That’s not too hard, because that’s what you get in SS, that’s what you get in science, but Common Core also encourages more informational text and nonfiction text in the English classroom,” she said. “We’re looking at the balance between fiction and nonfiction, and teaching students how to comprehend and learn from the various types of text.”

As the implementation of the Common Core standards continues, Jacobs said students will also begin to see more complex texts, as well as how to learn to write argumentative papers, opposed to informational ones, which will also put a heavier emphasis on research.

“Students are expected to be taught how to read complex texts and how to pull info and synthesize from complex text,” she said. “There’s not an expectation of handing a student a complex text, say in chemistry class, and saying ‘Read it.’ Instead, there’s an expectation that there’s explicit instruction about how best to read a complex text.”

“The previous standards, there was a lot about writing. But it was more narrative, more descriptive or more expository, just informational writing. But in Common Core, the idea is to be college- and career-ready.”

Jacobs said the new standards will also allow more creativity in teaching methods, as teachers will focus heavier on projects and discussion than on text books. Teachers will also integrate other subjects and lessons their students are learning in other classes to show the connection between the courses, as well as focus on real-world issues that relate to what the student is learning.

“We want students to realize that what’s happening in the classroom is really out there,” she said.

While not a federal initiative, 45 states have adopted the Common Core standards. The only states that have not adopted them are Virginia, Texas, Minnesota, Nebraska and Alaska.

For more information on the Common Core standards, visit www.arkansased.org or www.corestandards.org.